Southwest Simplicity

Welcome Friends to my revised, updated and easy to navigate blog, I am super excited that you have joined me today and if you were here with me you'd hear me squeal!

Please take time to peek at the categories and I made a little welcoming video too.

At Home With Jemma is southwest Simplicity made from my heart and home, I am embracing all things handmade and home cooked.

My little craft shop is a reflection of myself and the creative mindset of both of my Parents.

They have given me the gift of artistic expression.

Everything in the shop is hand painted, glitterfied, blingified and made by me.

(I am having fun)

In a world where products are mass produced it feels good to me to make something just for you.




Here on our front porch you will find a comfy chair, southwest congeniality and a genuine simplicity that comes from my heart to your home.

Take off your boots or shoes and stay awhile.

You will still find the same Jemma here, the one in her craft room, kitchen and garden talking to herself and jotting down notes and ideas that she really wants to share with you.




I am a family loving woman who struggles, tumbles and stumbles. I have had my share of broken hearts, hurt feelings, disappointments, skinned knees, hair dyed from brown to blonde, cut short, grown longish and I cry when my children hurt, my grandbabies are sick, or my husband is sad.

Some days I wake up and tell myself I am going to loose ten pounds, and then I eat a bag of M&M's.




We can be a hot mess around here, but we pull it together, put on our best dress, polish up our shoes, curl our hair, add the pink lipstick and smile.

I think I tried to be a version of what I thought perfect looked like in my younger years. I was always dodging the bullet of failure, and I fell off the tightrope of pleasing and critiquing myself so many times that I got tired of the bruises.

So, now it's just me in my imperfect and aging body that you are going to get, but it's real.




I have a dilemma going on in my life right now and it's my hair.

It has officially gone white-not gray.

White! How does this happen, one night you go to bed blonde and the next morning it is white!

Just look at it in this picture. I may be a Grammy, but even Grammy's like to have color on their hair. No more golden highlights for me...champagne blonde is what we are calling it now.

So you see friends, life has a way of forcing us to accept who we are, what we are and how we are.

So here I am sharing my life with you, in all of it's natural glory and working on embracing it.

I am a work in progress, but I am not giving up my glitter for humdrum.

I'll do my best to edit the photos, but I can't edit out my white-champagne hair.



On a happier note, I grew these two pumpkins and in all honesty they are this color. I put together this little vignette on our front porch. (Can it be called a vignette when it's on porch?) and burlap.

Now let me say this burlap is my type of cool and where I grew up it was cool long before some decorator decided it was. It is what we put the potatoes in during harvest-potato sacks. So for me burlap and Fall go together like salt in your soup.



During my restless young years growing up I'd sometimes ask my Mama what could we do today? She would always tell me this.

"Oh you never know what good things might happen, that phone could ring at any time."

It's true friends, always remember when your mind is aggravating you and your time seems unfulfilled you never know what good thing might happen to you when you least expect it!

That doorbell or phone could ring!



I'll be having a little giveaway soon to welcome you to my pretty new blog.

Thank you to the lovely Lady behind the scenes of my blog, Henderson, you can reach her here.